Margulis, Lynn (1938-2011), an American biologist, helped advance the study of the origins of cells. She developed the symbiotic theory, which states that bacteria played a vital role in the development of eukaryotic cells, or cells with a nucleus. Animals, plants, and many other living things are made up of eukaryotic cells. This theory has become known as the serial endosymbiosis theory, or SET theory.
Lynn Alexander Margulis was born on March 5, 1938, in Chicago. She received a doctoral degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1965. Margulis taught at Boston University from 1966 until 1988, when she became a professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. In addition to her work on the symbiotic theory, Margulis also contributed to the Gaia hypothesis. This hypothesis argues that Earth functions as a unified whole. Margulis’s work on the symbiotic theory is presented in Origin of Eukaryotic Cells (1970). She died on Nov. 22, 2011.
See also Gaia .
